Blog Postings
Search
April 25,2013
20:18It seems that Curiosity, the Mars rover, thought no one was looking, so....
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog
April 21,2013
23:55As a reward for surviving his operation in 2010, we gave Dalai, Jr. one of the original iPads. He never really took to it, preferring his laptop instead. Even so, in those heady, early days of the iPad, I was quite certain it would become THE radiology accessory, as seen in this cartoon which I made even before the iPad was released, and then this one after it was out. Later, I wrote an early review of the radiology viewing software then available. Some of my comments in that piece were rather prescient, especially those concerning the eventual increase in screen-resolution.
My son's iPad ultimately languished in a drawer for several years. On a lark, I dusted it off and used it for a teleprompter with the proper app (dvPrompter), which worked very well. It occurred to me that perhaps it was time to revisit the iPad, and maybe even pop for the iPad 4, with the Retina Display I had correctly predicted, and the Lightning connector which I had not foreseen.
The closing paragraphs of my software review referenced Apple's potential to redefine the PC world (in the more generic sense), with tablets taking over from laptops and desktops. This hasn't quite happened. It is rather ironic that Microsoft itself ran with the idea...right into a brick wall. The Latest and Greatest Windows, version 8, tries to add a touch interface and some flashy graphics to the venerable GUI. But it isn't selling, as noted by Yuval Rosenberg in the Fiscal Times:
You've probably heard of jail-breaking an Apple product, and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that with the proper software, one can take control of one's iPod, iPad, or iPhone, freeing it from the shackles of the iTunes store, not to mention the Kupertino Kops and their vision of exactly how your interface should behave. In my research, I found that there IS software to allow the use of a Bluetooth mouse or trackpad with an iDevice...IF it's jailbroken.
Legal opinions in the past few years have declared that it is not illegal to jailbreak the Apple progeny, (but it is of course illegal to then download software for free that should be paid). If you jailbreak, you will void Apple's warranty, but, well, my old iPad 1 is waaaaaay out of warranty...
So I did the deed. I jailbroke my son's iPad.
Once processed, the only initial change to be seen is the appearance of a new app named Cydia, which one could think of as the iTunes Store of a jailbroken, parallel universe, or perhaps a Bizarro world (any Superman fans out there?) Navigating Cydia is an experience somewhat less refined than browsing the iTunes store. The interface is cruder, and not for the faint of heart. To be honest, I felt sort of dirty being there, like wandering through an Earth-Fare and being the only customer without Birkenstocks. But it works, and once you get the hang of it, there is a tremendous amount of stuff that will transform your iWhatever into something the late Steve Jobs would probably haunt you over if he could.
Aside from the various downsides of not being able to upgrade to the latest IOS until the mad geniuses out there upgrade their jailbreaking software, and losing the warranty, there isn't too much of a downside. BUT, if you were expecting everything to be free, you would be sadly mistaken. So...I have yet to spend the $5 for the Bluetooth software. But I will. Eventually.
What I envisioned is a keyboard case for the iPad with a trackpad built in, something like this:
The Crux "Loaded" clamshell iPad case, prototype pictured above, was to have transformed your iPad into a mini-laptop for the small fee of $250. But for whatever reason, Crux seems to have dropped the project. Probably because the small fee of $250 was a little steep for the purpose. Add the cost of a souped-up iPad and you've about hit the $1,000 minimum price of an 11" MacBook Air:
Personally, I'm thinking the Air would be the better choice after all. I wonder if you can jailbreak an Air...
In the meantime, the Android world does have trackpadded options; Stein cites this Asus Transformer:
While the radiology apps for Android is not yet as numerous as for IOS, some do exist, and in fact Calgary Scientific's ResolutionMD is the first to receive clearance from the FDA for diagnostic reads.
In the meantime, I'm just going to wait for the iPad 5, before making any purchase decisions. The '5 is said to be thinner and more powerful then ever before. I wish I could say that about myself...
My son's iPad ultimately languished in a drawer for several years. On a lark, I dusted it off and used it for a teleprompter with the proper app (dvPrompter), which worked very well. It occurred to me that perhaps it was time to revisit the iPad, and maybe even pop for the iPad 4, with the Retina Display I had correctly predicted, and the Lightning connector which I had not foreseen.
The closing paragraphs of my software review referenced Apple's potential to redefine the PC world (in the more generic sense), with tablets taking over from laptops and desktops. This hasn't quite happened. It is rather ironic that Microsoft itself ran with the idea...right into a brick wall. The Latest and Greatest Windows, version 8, tries to add a touch interface and some flashy graphics to the venerable GUI. But it isn't selling, as noted by Yuval Rosenberg in the Fiscal Times:
Windows 8, meanwhile, hasn’t won over consumers since being launched in October, accelerating the popular shift away from PCs. Microsoft looks to have a flop on its hands – and one that, despite Ballmer’s talk of devices and services, remains very much at the heart of the company’s strategy. "At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market," IDC’s Bob O'Donnell said in releasing the quarterly data. IDC’s data doesn’t include tablets or the new wave of laptop-tablet hybrids, so the slump in Windows-based computing may be slightly less pronounced than its figures show, but rival tracking firm Gartner found an 11.2 percent decline in year-over-year PC shipments so Windows 8 clearly hasn’t helped turn the tide.And therein lies the problem. I came to the conclusion independently, but CNet's Scott Stein stated it better than I could in a 2012 article, "Why My iPad Can't Replace My Laptop: It's The Trackpad":
The new operating system, designed to enable touch screens, has failed to win over users accustomed to the old user interface, or UI. Plus, PCs with touchscreens are still expensive compared to tablets. "While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices,” O’Donnell said. “Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market."
Adding a keyboard to an iPad, like the Logitech/Zagg Keyboard Case for iPad 2, solves the problem of text entry. That's great for when you have to write a long essay, or are working on a chunk of your Great American Novel, or just want to jot down some notes. It's not so great when you have to edit a document, or create a blog post with embedded links, or do simultaneous Web research and writing. To do anything more than text entry and a few other commands, you'll have to reach up and touch the iPad's screen, which isn't exactly ergonomic or time-efficient when you have the iPad propped up and a keyboard attached. In fact, it's downright awkward.So, the key to high-level iPad happiness is a keyboard and a pointing device. Several keyboard cases exist, and work well. There are all sorts of Bluetooth trackpads out there as well, but they don't work with the iPad as yet...because they aren't supported by the IOS (operating system). But, there is a way...
This is why touch-screen laptops haven't taken off. No one wants to touch a screen while typing on a keyboard. I want a trackpad when I work, or even a mouse. Touching the screen makes no sense in "laptop" mode. I'd rather use the iPad as a straight-up tablet, which brings me back full circle and defeats the purpose of the keyboard.
You've probably heard of jail-breaking an Apple product, and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that with the proper software, one can take control of one's iPod, iPad, or iPhone, freeing it from the shackles of the iTunes store, not to mention the Kupertino Kops and their vision of exactly how your interface should behave. In my research, I found that there IS software to allow the use of a Bluetooth mouse or trackpad with an iDevice...IF it's jailbroken.
Legal opinions in the past few years have declared that it is not illegal to jailbreak the Apple progeny, (but it is of course illegal to then download software for free that should be paid). If you jailbreak, you will void Apple's warranty, but, well, my old iPad 1 is waaaaaay out of warranty...
So I did the deed. I jailbroke my son's iPad.
Once processed, the only initial change to be seen is the appearance of a new app named Cydia, which one could think of as the iTunes Store of a jailbroken, parallel universe, or perhaps a Bizarro world (any Superman fans out there?) Navigating Cydia is an experience somewhat less refined than browsing the iTunes store. The interface is cruder, and not for the faint of heart. To be honest, I felt sort of dirty being there, like wandering through an Earth-Fare and being the only customer without Birkenstocks. But it works, and once you get the hang of it, there is a tremendous amount of stuff that will transform your iWhatever into something the late Steve Jobs would probably haunt you over if he could.
Aside from the various downsides of not being able to upgrade to the latest IOS until the mad geniuses out there upgrade their jailbreaking software, and losing the warranty, there isn't too much of a downside. BUT, if you were expecting everything to be free, you would be sadly mistaken. So...I have yet to spend the $5 for the Bluetooth software. But I will. Eventually.
What I envisioned is a keyboard case for the iPad with a trackpad built in, something like this:
The Crux "Loaded" clamshell iPad case, prototype pictured above, was to have transformed your iPad into a mini-laptop for the small fee of $250. But for whatever reason, Crux seems to have dropped the project. Probably because the small fee of $250 was a little steep for the purpose. Add the cost of a souped-up iPad and you've about hit the $1,000 minimum price of an 11" MacBook Air:
 |
| 15, 13, and 11 inch Macs, image courtesy Anandtech.com |
In the meantime, the Android world does have trackpadded options; Stein cites this Asus Transformer:
 |
| Credit: Scott Stein, Josh Miller/CNET |
In the meantime, I'm just going to wait for the iPad 5, before making any purchase decisions. The '5 is said to be thinner and more powerful then ever before. I wish I could say that about myself...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog
April 14,2013
23:27While I'm not that much of a sports fan, Mrs. Dalai and I bid successfully on tickets for the Final Four offered by one of our favorite charities, Camperships For Nebagamon, and so we got to tick one more item off of our bucket list. (Still to come, not necessarily in order: Superbowl, college and professional baseball World Series, visits to Giza and the pyramids, Angor Wat, the Terra Cotta Soldiers in China, African Safari, Paris, Scotland, Ireland. And while I've been to Israel, Hawaii, and Australia, Mrs. Dalai hasn't, so our shared list includes these spots as well.)
I won't begin to analyze the Final Four semi-final and final games, as most any one of you out there could do a far better job of it than I. Still, we thought Michigan had a stronger performance against Syracuse than Louisville did against Wichita State, and we were a little surprised by the outcome of the final game. While we had no dog in the fight, as USC (our USC, not that usurper in California) has never made it into the Final Four, we did favor Louisville out of sympathy for the injured Kevin Ware.
There is nothing like seeing a sport played at the highest levels, even for someone like me who doesn't really appreciate the finer points of the game. I was somewhat surprised that the President, who is a very big fan of the game, didn't show for the finals. Mr. Obama does get all the nuances, I'm sure. But everyone understands this: there will be a winner and there will be a loser in each and every game. And no one seems to have much of a problem with that. It is accepted that in competition, the outcome is determined by some magical melange of luck, skill, timing, phase of the moon (the tides might affect the spin of the ball, you know), and Heaven knows what else. The Wolverines, while disappointed, haven't been quoted as saying that the Cardinals had some unfair advantage. Rick Snyder, the Governor of Michigan, who sat about 20 seats away from us, isn't calling Greg Fischer, the Mayor of Louisville, to chastise him over the loss, and request an equalization of the points scored.
Clearly, we all understand the concept of winning and losing, and the implied fairness therein. But somehow that feeling doesn't seem to translate into real life, which is essentially a series of competitions that pit one of us against another in some form or fashion. I had to compete with other applicants to get into college, then medical school, then residency, then to find a job. You could say I "won" these clashes, and others lost. My salary might therefore be higher than someone else's. The general feeling, at least among approximately 53% of the population, give or take a percent, is that somehow this is not fair, and my largess must be equalized. I must be forced to pay my fair share, although no one has bothered to define what my fair share really is, not to mention what makes this fair in the least. Fair has become the purview of the majority, and as the old saying goes, democracy lasts until the public realizes it can vote itself stuff from the public coffers. Which the public expects to be filled by the "winners" of society giving back points (I mean money) that was earned, well, fairly.
Was it fair that Louisville beat Michigan? From my vantage-point in section 116, about 40 rows up, I think so. But there are those who attribute the win to bad calls such as the foul called on the block pictured above. If we go there, however, we have to postulate some sort of bias on the part of the officials; otherwise, it's rather safe to assume an equal number of bad calls for each team. And maybe that is the origin of the fairness thing. All men (and women) are created equal, but the second we draw our first breath, that equality diverges into a zillion different directions. The outcomes of our various endeavors simply cannot be equal, and this angers a lot of people. It just isn't fair, they cry. But I say this: it wouldn't be at all fair to FORCE equality where it doesn't belong. Someone who is smarter and/or more clever than I am deserves to make more money and have more toys than I do. It's that simple. And that trickles down to those who had the luck to be born to those with those skills, in my humble opinion. Again, it is NOT the job of the government to equalize the outcome, only to remove impediments to the success of anyone and everyone with the ability to achieve it.
Congratulations to the Louisville Cardinals, who played hard and deserved their win and title, even with the unfair loss of Kevin Ware. I guess to be fair, Michigan's Trey Burke should have volunteered to have his leg broken as well, eh? That would have leveled the playing field... Fair is fair, after all.
 |
| Courtesy Kevin B. Cox, www.sbnation.com |
There is nothing like seeing a sport played at the highest levels, even for someone like me who doesn't really appreciate the finer points of the game. I was somewhat surprised that the President, who is a very big fan of the game, didn't show for the finals. Mr. Obama does get all the nuances, I'm sure. But everyone understands this: there will be a winner and there will be a loser in each and every game. And no one seems to have much of a problem with that. It is accepted that in competition, the outcome is determined by some magical melange of luck, skill, timing, phase of the moon (the tides might affect the spin of the ball, you know), and Heaven knows what else. The Wolverines, while disappointed, haven't been quoted as saying that the Cardinals had some unfair advantage. Rick Snyder, the Governor of Michigan, who sat about 20 seats away from us, isn't calling Greg Fischer, the Mayor of Louisville, to chastise him over the loss, and request an equalization of the points scored.
Clearly, we all understand the concept of winning and losing, and the implied fairness therein. But somehow that feeling doesn't seem to translate into real life, which is essentially a series of competitions that pit one of us against another in some form or fashion. I had to compete with other applicants to get into college, then medical school, then residency, then to find a job. You could say I "won" these clashes, and others lost. My salary might therefore be higher than someone else's. The general feeling, at least among approximately 53% of the population, give or take a percent, is that somehow this is not fair, and my largess must be equalized. I must be forced to pay my fair share, although no one has bothered to define what my fair share really is, not to mention what makes this fair in the least. Fair has become the purview of the majority, and as the old saying goes, democracy lasts until the public realizes it can vote itself stuff from the public coffers. Which the public expects to be filled by the "winners" of society giving back points (I mean money) that was earned, well, fairly.
Was it fair that Louisville beat Michigan? From my vantage-point in section 116, about 40 rows up, I think so. But there are those who attribute the win to bad calls such as the foul called on the block pictured above. If we go there, however, we have to postulate some sort of bias on the part of the officials; otherwise, it's rather safe to assume an equal number of bad calls for each team. And maybe that is the origin of the fairness thing. All men (and women) are created equal, but the second we draw our first breath, that equality diverges into a zillion different directions. The outcomes of our various endeavors simply cannot be equal, and this angers a lot of people. It just isn't fair, they cry. But I say this: it wouldn't be at all fair to FORCE equality where it doesn't belong. Someone who is smarter and/or more clever than I am deserves to make more money and have more toys than I do. It's that simple. And that trickles down to those who had the luck to be born to those with those skills, in my humble opinion. Again, it is NOT the job of the government to equalize the outcome, only to remove impediments to the success of anyone and everyone with the ability to achieve it.
Congratulations to the Louisville Cardinals, who played hard and deserved their win and title, even with the unfair loss of Kevin Ware. I guess to be fair, Michigan's Trey Burke should have volunteered to have his leg broken as well, eh? That would have leveled the playing field... Fair is fair, after all.
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog
May 16,2013
9:58Big Day in Genomics Angelina Jolie’s very open revelation, “My Medical Choice” in the The New York Times, was brave, and a “big day for genomics”, according to Leslie Ziegler of Rock Health. Jolie, in a powerful and personal narrative, explains why she chose a preventative double mastectomy after genetic testing found the BRCA1 gene. She was estimated to have [...]
Source: HL7 Standards » HL7 Blog
Categories: News and Views , All
May 14,2013
17:29Last week in a bold and historic move (and a bitter pill indeed for many healthcare executives finding themselves explaining the obscure financial inner workings of a hospital) the HHS/CMS released the national charge master data. The release seems to be a response to Steven Brill’s epic TIME magazine article on medical billing: Bitter Pill: [...]
Source: HL7 Standards » HL7 Blog
Categories: News and Views , All
9:22
I recently had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Grahame Grieve, the originator of FHIR, on the details behind this evolving health IT standard. I have written a couple of blogs previously to introduce FHIR, including 5 Things to Know About HL7 FHIR and Review of The HL7 FHIR Session at HIMSS13. This standard [...]
Source: HL7 Standards » HL7 Blog
Categories: News and Views , All
April 1,2013
12:28
Source: GNUmed for the masses
March 24,2013
2:51Source: GNUmed for the masses
March 6,2013
11:53Healthcare executives are continuously evaluating the subject of RFID and RTLS in general. Whether it is to maintain the hospitals competitive advantage, accomplish a differentiation in the market, improve compliance with requirements of (AORN, JCAHO, CDC) or improve asset utilization and operating efficiency. As part of the evaluations there is that constant concern around a tangible and measurable ROI for these solutions that can come at a significant price.
When considering the areas that RTLS can affect within the hospital facilities as well as other patient care units, there are at least four significant points to highlight:
Disease surveillance: With hospitals dealing with different challenges around disease management and how to handle it. RTLS technology can determine each and every staff member who could have potentially been in contact with a patient classified as highly contagious or with a specific condition.
Hand hygiene compliance: Many health systems are reporting hand hygiene compliance as part of safety and quality initiatives. Some use “look-out” staff to walk the halls and record all hand hygiene actives. However, with the introduction of RTLS hand hygiene protocol and compliance when clinical staff enter or use the dispensers can now be dynamically tracked and reported on. Currently several of the systems that are available today are also providing active alters to the clinicians whenever they enter a patient’s room and haven’t complied with the hand hygiene guidelines.
Locating equipment for maintenance and cleaning:
Having the ability to identify the location of equipment that is due for routine maintenance or cleaning is critical to ensuring the safety of patients. RTLS is capable of providing alerts on equipment to staff.
A recent case of a hospital spent two months on a benchmarking analysis and found that it took on average 22 minutes to find an infusion pump. After the implementation of RTLS, it took an average of two minutes to find a pump. This cuts down on lag time in care and can help ensure that clinicians can have the tools and equipment they need, when the patient needs it.
There are also other technologies and products which have been introduced and integrated into some of the current RTLS systems available.
EHR integration:
There are several RTLS systems that are integrated with Bed management systems as well as EHR products that are able to deliver patient order status, alerts within the application can also be given. This has enabled nurses to take advantage of being in one screen and seeing a summary of updated patient related information.
Unified Communication systems:
Nurse calling systems have enabled nurses to communicate anywhere the device is implemented within the hospital facility, and to do so efficiently. These functionalities are starting to infiltrate the RTLS market and for some of the Unified Communication firms, it means that their structures can now provide a backbone for system integrators to simply integrate their functionality within their products.
In many of the recent implementations of RTLS products, hospital executives opted to deploy the solutions within one specific area to pilot the solutions. Many of these smaller implementations succeed and allow the decision makers to evaluate and measure the impacts these solutions can have on their environment. There are several steps that need to be taken into consideration when implementing asset tracking systems:
• Define the overall goals and driving forces behind the initiative
• Develop challenges and opportunities the RTLS solution will be able to provide
• Identify the operational area that would yield to the highest impact with RTLS
• Identify infrastructure requirements and technology of choice (WiFi based, RFID based, UC integration, interface capability requirements)
• Define overall organizational risks associated with these solutions
• Identify compliance requirements around standards of use
Conclusion
RFID is one facet of sensory data that is being considered by many health executives. It is providing strong ROI for many of the adapters applying it to improve care and increase efficiency of equipment usage, as well as equipment maintenance and workflow improvement. While there are several different hardware options to choose from, and technologies ranging from Wi-Fi to IR/RF, this technology has been showing real value and savings that health care IT and supply chain executives alike can’t ignore.
Source: Healthcare IT Insider
February 21,2013
14:41It was not long after mankind invented the wheel, carts came around. Throughout history people have been mounting wheels on boxes, now we have everything from golf carts, shopping carts, hand carts and my personal favorite, hotdog carts. So you might ask yourself, “What is so smart about a medical cart?”
Today’s medical carts have evolved to be more than just a storage box with wheels. Rubbermaid Medical Solutions, one of the largest manufacturers of medical carts, have created a cart that is specially designed to house computers, telemedicine, medical supply goods and to also offer medication dispensing. Currently the computers on the medical carts are used to provide access to CPOE, eMAR, and EHR applications.
With the technology trend of mobility quickly on the rise in healthcare, organizations might question the future viability of medical carts. However a recent HIMSS study showed that cart use, at the point of care, was on the rise from 26 percent in 2008 to 45 percent in 2011. The need for medical carts will continue to grow; as a result, cart manufacturers are looking for innovative ways to separate themselves from their competition. Medical carts are evolving from healthcare products to healthcare solutions. Instead of selling medical carts with web cameras, carts manufacturers are developing complete telemedicine solutions that offer remote appointments throughout the country, allowing specialist to broaden their availability with patients in need. Carts are even interfaced with eMAR systems that are able to increase patient safety; the evolution of the cart is rapidly changing the daily functions of the medical field.
Some of the capabilities for medical carts of the future will be to automatically detect their location within a healthcare facility. For example if a cart is improperly stored in a hallway for an extended period of time staff could be notified to relocate it in order to comply to the Joint Commission’s requirements. Real-time location information for the carts could allow them to automatically process tedious tasks commonly performed by healthcare staff. When a cart is rolled into a patient room it could automatically open the patient’s electronic chart or give a patient visit summary through signals exchanged between then entering cart and the logging device kept in the room and effectively updated.
Autonomous robots are now starting to be used in larger hospitals such as the TUG developed by Aethon. These robots increase efficiency and optimize staff time by allowing staff to focus on more mission critical items. Medical carts in the near future will become smart robotic devices able to automatically relocate themselves to where they are needed. This could be used for scheduled telemedicine visits, the next patient in the rounding queue or for automated medication dispensing to patients.
Innovation will continue in medical carts as the need for mobile workspaces increase. What was once considered a computer in a stick could be the groundwork for care automation in the future.
Source: Healthcare IT Insider
September 10,2012
9:35This has been an eventful year for speech recognition companies. We are seeing an increased development of intelligence systems that can interact via voice. Siri was simply a re-introduction of digital assistants into the consumer market and since then, other mobile platforms have implemented similar capabilities.
In hospitals and physician’s practices the use of voice recognition products tend to be around the traditional speech-to-text dictation for SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) notes, and some basic voice commands to interact with EHR systems. While there are several new initiatives that will involve speech recognition, natural language understanding and decision support tools are becoming the focus of many technology firms. These changes will begin a new era for speech engine companies in the health care market.
While there is clearly tremendous value in using voice solutions to assist during the capture of medical information, there are several other uses that health care organizations can benefit from. Consider a recent product by Nuance called “NINA”, short for Nuance Interactive Natural Assistant. This product consists of speech recognition technologies that are combined with voice biometrics and natural language processing (NLP) that helps the system understand the intent of its users and deliver what is being asked of them.
This app can provide a new way to access health care services without the complexity that comes with cumbersome phone trees, and website mazes. From a patient’s perspective, the use of these virtual assistants means improved patient satisfaction, as well as quick and easy access to important information.
Two areas we can see immediate value in are:
Customer service: Simpler is always better, and with NINA powered Apps, or Siri like products, patients can easily find what they are looking for. Whether a patient is calling a payer to see if a procedure is covered under their plan, or contacting the hospital to inquire for information about the closest pediatric urgent care. These tools will provide a quick way to get access to the right information without having to navigate complex menus.
Accounting and PHR interaction: To truly see the potential of success for these solutions, we can consider some of the currently used cases that NUANCE has been exhibiting. In looking at it from a health care perspective, patients would have the ability to simply ask to schedule a visit without having to call. A patient also has the ability to call to refill their medication.
Nuance did address some of the security concerns by providing tools such as VocalPassword that will tackle authentication. This would help verify the identity of patients who are requesting services and giving commands. As more intelligence voice-driven systems mature, the areas to focus on will be operational costs, customer satisfaction, and data capture.
Source: Healthcare IT Insider
February 5,2013
18:01[...] medical practice billing software encourage [...]
Source: Medical Software Guides
May 6,2013
11:48A frequent question I am asked by startups and their software focused leadership teams is, “how do we generate sales and what is the appropriate process to follow in creating our sales expectations.” My friend Steve Carbonara has been selling software to healthcare enterprises for years so I asked him to write a companion to his piece on selling to hospitals. Steve is currently the Chief Sales Officer at Cohealo, Inc., a VC backed healthcare services firm that optimizes purchasing and consumption of medical devices and equipment. After 8 years in corporate sales with Misys Healthcare and Allscripts, Steve has worked as a consultant with many start ups and medium sized businesses to optimize their sales processes. If you’re a tech-focused startup there’s a lot of help out there on the technical side but very little on the sales side so I invited Steve to share his advice on how to sell health IT products, especially EHRs, into physician practices and hospitals. Here’s what Steve had to say on improving sales through better funnel management:
In my last article in this series we discussed how to sell Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) software into the medical community and matching the selling process to the buying process. Today we’re going to focus on creating and managing that funnel of prospects; now that we’re matching up to the needs of our prospects, we’re going to be matching up to their time lines as well. As I have worked with solutions including EHR’s, Personal Health Records (PHR), Business Analytics, Clinical Analytics, Practice Management Solutions (PMS), and other health information technology; this article is transferable across the HIT landscape.
So what is funnel management and how do you maximize your return on investment from your funnel ? Basically, funnel management is learning how to manage your time and your expectations. If you want to have success in this industry of healthcare information technology (HIT) you have to know what it is going to take to make the monthly, quarterly and annual revenue that your firm needs to stay afloat, or to thrive. Some people think that if they sell product and their basic overhead is covered then they are successful, the problem with this assumption is that you have more than basic overhead. Have you thought of marketing costs, commissions for sales people, channel partners revenue needs, reinvestment into the products you sell, incremental revenue growth, market share and market position?
So, to begin good funnel management, you need to make sure you have a good pricing scheme. Pricing is the perceived value of your product as seen by customers based their needs. Did you perform market research to validate your pricing assumptions? Are you priced into the industry but not low enough to keep yourself from going out of business? Are you priced too high and thus above the perceived value of your product? Once you accomplish the goal of pricing yourself as a valuable product, not as a ‘bargain’ product, you will be able to sell within the needs of the industry and make money. This is important as I have seen many companies in this industry try to ‘buy’ their way into the market but it ended up with them being the ‘cheap’ solution, a title you don’t want to win, in any business.
How do you create a value proposition for your product once you define price? Through your market research you should speak with your target market, and learn from them. If you listen, you will understand that they tell you how to sell them, they tell you how to price your product, and they will tell you what was too much and what was cheap. If you listen then you will take their input and build your value propositions around their needs. If you have built your value propositions around your needs instead of market needs, you will not be able to match your sales cycle to the customers buying cycle. If you don’t even know what their needs are, take the time and make the investment, do your homework up front in market research and you will save money in the end.
Building Your Matrix to Success
So, pricing is in place, now we can build the matrix for success that will deliver us the revenue we need. As the CXO of your company you need to look at this from the point of view of your sales person. What does this person you hire need to do to meet your financial goals and earn the money that they need for their family? Once you understand this matrix you will understand how many sales people you will need to hire to meet all revenue goals. Let’s begin.
As the CEO you know your research informed you that your competitors have sales representatives closing an average of $500,000 a year in new business. You learned that they have a typical deal size of $20,000 and that they sell 100 units per deal at $200 per unit. Your basic sales plan lines up easy from here, each sales rep will have a quota of $300,000, you will look to average the same $20,000 per sale deal size with $200 per unit being the price of your widget. This means the sales rep will sell 15 deals this year to hit their number, or just over 1 deal per month.
Why did I go at $300,000 and not $500,000? Because you understood that your competition is a large national company that has been in business for 10 years with name brand recognition and you are new with less marketing spend and much less brand awareness. I would be honest with myself and with my new sales team, letting them know that my expectations are that we are going to work together to build this company and that means we will have to fight for every deal and that you know that each of them will lose more than they win this first year. You align yourself with your team, you build the trust and credibility that they need to have in you and in the end you set the appropriate expectations with yourself and your investors.
So, how many contacts do you need to make a week to begin building a funnel that will drive 15 new contracts and $500,000 in gross sales? I would say 400 new contacts. Why? Where to start:
- Because healthcare information technology as a market is saturated
- Because the big vendors, like Epic, Allscripts, Cerner and EClinicalWorks have an in with the hospitals and clinics that you can’t match
- Because competition will ‘buy’ a deal away from you
- Because you’re not obtuse enough to think you can close every deal you’re in.
I would go with the knowledge that the typical direct to consumer marketing effort relates to a close rate of 2-3%, but even if you give yourself credit for being better than that rate you still have to admit that your company may be small and not well known, and it doesn’t have a client base who can sell forward. With all this being said put that number in front of yourself and plan your attack.
Recap: 400 new contacts at 3% close rate provides 12 new clients this year and at $20,000 per deal you will generate $240,000 with your knowledge that you’re better than average and you will pick up the other 3 additional new clients getting you to the $300,000 per sales rep. quota.
What activities define your week if you’re trying to work within 400 active deals?
Well, this depends on your marketing budget, and you have that handy because you finished it while you were performing your market research. If you have an appropriate budget then here is an example:
|
Activity Type |
Activity Defined |
Activities/week |
Total/year |
|
Cold calls |
Dialing for dollars |
100 |
4,800 |
|
Warm calls |
Networking, the people you know |
10 |
480 |
|
Discovery calls |
Found interest, don’t rush to tell your story, find out what they need |
11 |
528 |
|
Demonstrations |
Once you did discovery your demo should reflect need |
5 |
240 |
|
Follow up meetings |
Unless you demo Iphones people will need time to talk through options, maybe see more demos for their team |
5 |
240 |
|
Proposal presentations |
Once you got through all data sharing and needs matching to product functionality provide pricing, pricing should not be a first call topic |
2 |
96 |
|
Pricing negotiations |
Buyers never agree to what you want them to, plan this step to take weeks not minutes |
1 |
48 |
|
Reference calls and site visits |
Not every buyer will demand this but be ready for it in HIT market |
.25 |
12 |
|
Contract signing |
Even at this point the deal is not done, be ready for last minute issues to pop up |
.31 |
15 |
These activities are what each sales rep will do to achieve their goals and each activity builds upon the one prior to it, thus reflecting the sales cycle. Each widget needs to be sold a little differently, so these steps are easily changed to reflect the appropriate steps that your firm demands of your sales team.
The following activities are reflective of your company performing activities that help drive market and brand awareness to help your sales team reach their goals. These activities may be performed by the sales team, the senior leadership or a marketing team; but in the end, they are not part of the sales cycle, but are part of your overall marketing plan, helping sales generate qualified leads
| Activity Type | Activity Defined | Total/year |
| HIMSS conference | Largest national HIT conference specific to the technology personnel of hospitals and a great place to build relationships with other vendors that may be partners in the future | 1 |
| HFMA conference | Solid national conference that is more specific to the financial personnel at the hospitals and clinics | 1 |
| MGMA conference | Solid national conference that is more specific to the administrators of clinics, very little hospital attendees | 1 |
| Regional conferences | Each of the above has regional shows that you can attend with a focus on that local community of members | 2 |
| Local conferences | Each of the above has local chapters that feed into the regions and there are some great groups that have monthly meetings | 6 to 12 |
| Webcasts | Building trust is defining your value proposition in the market, can you deliver a message that provides value and that drives market interest and sales | 4 to 12 |
| Case study creation | Your value proposition statements to your prospects are strengthened through exhibiting these successes with current customers in short write ups defining the value and ROI | 4 |
| Blogging | Becoming a thought leader within your specific market begins with defining your stance on the influencers in that market and the conditions presenting themselves to your customers | 12-24 |
| Speaking | Speaking is a great option at the local, regional or national level. The more you and your company define the market the more valuable your speaking will become | 4 |
| Website optimization | This is a daily/weekly/monthly job that you need to be aware of to ensure that you deliver the appropriate message to your prospects | NA |
There’s a lot to do and being engaged in 400 active deals is not easy, time management is not a gift, it’s a talent that you have to develop and then manage. When working with my clients I have put together matrixes exhibiting exactly how much time a sales rep, and thus the company, should focus on each of these activities and what value should be derived from each. Defining how a sales rep should spend their 8 hours a day working for your firm can never go to far, as it sets expectations and defines success and failure so that no one is surprised at year’s end, with failure or with success. Go as far with this exercise as you want, the more detail documented and the more you can hold yourself accountable to your daily, weekly and monthly totals, the better off your firm and your sales representatives will be moving forward.
Join me for my next posting where we will dive deeper into managing the funnel that you just laid the groundwork to build.
Source: The Healthcare IT Guy
May 5,2013
11:54Following HiMSS13 in New Orleans I sat down last month in a BlogTalkRadio broadcast with Dr. Pat Salber (@DocWeighsIn @HealthTechHatch), Gregg Masters (@2healthguru @ACOwatch) and John Lynn (@techguy) with a ‘debrief’ of our key HIMSS13 take-aways as well as our latest venture, Influential Networks.
I covered the following topics in the podcast:
- The HIMSS 13 cheerleading and “echo chamber”
- Are we moving faster with MU than the industry can really accomodate?
- How MU is creating false demand and a false market and when we might be able to move back to real innovation
- Supply of health IT professionals and whether they’re meeting the demand
- Medical device connectivity
- Population management
- Lack of evidence-driven selection of technology
Listen to internet radio with this week in health innovation on BlogTalkRadio
Source: The Healthcare IT Guy
10:29
I’ve said repeatedly that any cloud / SaaS vendor that wants to be taken seriously in healthcare must be willing to sign a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) and I was happy to hear that Box.com is now willing to do so. I’m quite pleased that we’re finally seeing some serious healthcare SaaS offerings from horizontal (non-healthcare-specific) vendors. Only when we move beyond healthcare-specific offerings will we be able to unshackle ourselves from the decades old legacy health IT vendors and that’s great news. While Box.com is only one vendor I think they will be the first of many general industry SaaS providers that will provide secure file sharing, mobile access, document management, and other important collaboration services that incumbent health IT vendors can now build on instead of having to reinvent the proverbial infrastructure wheel.
Last week the Box.com healthcare team invited me to participate in their “Secure Cloud Collaboration in Healthcare” webinar. The full event, audio, and screencast is available on their BrightTalk.com channel.
My point to the audience was that healthcare professionals are very resourceful and if IT doesn’t provide them the proper solutions they will not just wait for progress, they’ll take matters into their hands — creating a growing “Shadow IT” problem. In the webinar I talked about “Shadow IT” and how solutions like Box.com can reduce the problems of end users choosing consumer-grade cloud solutions that are not HIPAA compliant or secure enough for enterprise use.
Source: The Healthcare IT Guy
March 24,2013
12:56I believe the most important aspect of my role as a CIO is communication. A mediocre strategy well articulated will produce greater results than an excellent strategy that is not understood by those that must execute and support it.
There are many communication vehicles, but those of us at the senior management level must be able to stand in front of a room with a few hundred people and deliver a 30 minute presentation that is effective and engaging.
I enjoy this aspect of my job and I am constantly seeking to get better at it. I think I am better than average, but short of where I want to be. No matter how good one gets at this, an engaging presentation requires time to craft and practice to deliver well. I can still fall on my face if I do not have enough preparation time.
Every time I start to prepare a new presentation I do so with the intent of rivaling what Steve Jobs would do. The limitations of time and talent will keep me well short of that, but that is the mindset I start with.
Most folks in the corporate world start their presentations using a PowerPoint template created by the marketing department; and, most of those templates are awful. When Steve Jobs introduced a new product did his slides have the top 1/3 reserved for a giant title? Did every slide need to be branded with the an Apple logo and tag line. Did those slide use bullet pointed lines of text which he would read to the audience? Be brave, dump your corporate PowerPoint template.
There are a couple of books that I have found helpful and would recommend to anyone wanting to become better presenters. Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen has lot of suggestions about the entire process of creating and presenting a presentation. It really shines in the guidance it gives on creating engaging slides, the kind of slides Steve Jobs would use.
Another book that I have recently begun to re-read is Granville Toogood’s The New Articulate Executive. It is filled with presentation wisdom.
If anyone has presentation tips or book recommendations I would appreciate appreciate it if you left them as a comment to this post.
Source: Candid CIO
February 26,2013
20:57Periodicals, blog posts and journal articles are great for gaining an understanding of complicated laws such as HIPAA and the HITECH Act. But, if you are responsible for such an area for an organization, I highly recommend that you read the actual text of the regulation.
Reading the regulations will help you avoid the trap of subscribing to conventional wisdom that is NOT wise. Having an understanding of what the regulations really say will help you find the best solution for your organization.
And, I find that the laws are surprisingly readable. In the case of the Meaningful Use Final Rules, the first 85% of each rule is ONC’s response to all of the comments that they received. These are very insightful and, in my opinion well-written. The actual regulations are really just a few pages and are a very quick read. The most confusing part is when the rule’s reference a specific standard using the legal number system. But that is navigable (the Find function is your friend).
Source: Candid CIO
February 2,2013
13:47Mike Silverstein wrote a wonderfully candid story on HISTalk. Everyone that buys heatlcare IT needs to read the entire post. This part in particular is a gem…
“Their [healthcare IT startup companies'] game plan is often the same: spend a bunch of money to hire salespeople who can go out and sell something, then hope something sticks and figure out the rest later.”
My take is this…due diligence is more important than ever and most of us aren’t doing it right.
Source: Candid CIO
March 12,2010
11:01This blog is now located at http://blog.rodspace.co.uk/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://blog.rodspace.co.uk/feeds/posts/default. Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12607263970096550308noreply@blogger.com0
Source: Informaticopia
March 3,2010
4:07I've just heard about the Information Technology and Communications in Health (ITCH) which will be held February 24 - 27, 2011, Inn at Laurel Point, Victoria, BC Canada.I'd not heard of this conference before but the current call for papers looks interesting.Health Informatics: International Perspectives is the working theme for the 2011 international conference. Health informatics is now a Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12607263970096550308noreply@blogger.com0
Source: Informaticopia
3:59
The report of the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England sets out the way forward for the future of the professions which was published yesterday, calls for the establishment of a "high-level group to determine how to build nursing and midwifery capacity to understand and influence the development and use of new technologies. It must consider how pre- and Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12607263970096550308noreply@blogger.com0
Source: Informaticopia
May 20,2013
14:49Portuguese and Spanish researchers in the field of social robotics are working on the use of robots to interact with children who are hospitalized for the treatment of cancer, thereby providing emotional support.
The researchers are keen to take robots out of the laboratory and place them in a real environment. Until now, most of the research on social robotics has taken place in very controlled environments. As Professor Salichs from UC3M points out, 'The introduction of a group of autonomous social robots into surroundings with these characteristics is something new, and we hope that the project will help us to advance in the development of robots that are able to relate to people in complex situations and scenarios.'
via cordis.europa.eu
Another cause for guarded optimism about health care robotics? My hope is that it will augment the efforts of often overworked staff and allow them to better prioritize the focus of their precious attention and energy. In addition to their potential social value, robots could act as in situ surveillance devices to watch for nascent or emergent health crises. My fear is that they will be used as justification for cutting costs through staff reductions, as self-checkout lanes have done in supermarkets.
Thanks to ACM TechNews for the pointer to the CORDIS story.
Source: FutureHIT
May 15,2013
12:56Robot Aids in Therapy for Autistic Children
Wall Street Journal (05/01/13) Shirley S. WangUniversity of Notre Dame researchers will present study findings at the annual conference of the International Society for Autism Research showing promise in the use of robots for teaching social skills to autistic children. The study, involving 19 autistic children, is believed to be the largest trial to date using robots in this way. The children interacted with a two-foot-tall robot therapist that was programmed to ask novel questions and engage children in conversation. The study participants showed greater conversational improvement with the robot than with a human therapist alone, and parents reported more significant improvement at home as well. Children interacted in six sessions with the robot as well as with a human therapist, who provided instruction on specific skills when interacting with the robot, such as making eye contact or taking turns talking. Simplified social interactions with a robot might be beneficial to children with autism, who tend to be very interested in technology but find complex social interactions challenging. The researchers hope the children will carry over the social skills to interactions with people as well, rather than just interacting with the robot.
via technews.acm.org
Monday's ACM TechNews produced this very brief but tantalizing summary of a Wall Street Journal article.
This is one of those stories that leave me very ambivalent. In some ways, my automatic reaction to our collective desire to depend more on automation in direct patient care is fear. I am afraid we are going to abandon our elderly and otherwise hopelessly disabled kin to the unfeeling arms of robots, androids, whatever. This will spare us the feelings aroused by an out-of-control psychotic spouse, an incontinent and demented parent, or a profoundly developmentally disabled child, when we must intervene and our interventions are resisted, not appreciated, or insufficiently effective.
With this story, I see the situation is not so simple. Autistic children have difficulty relating to humans with whom they are intimately involved, and their difficulties are often reflected in others' responses to them. Machines are insensitive by nature, and can be programmed to reward positive behavior and ignore the negatives. This may be a situation, as the investigators assert, where robotic intervention is not only appropriate as an alternative but can even improve the patient's situation holistically.
I don't have a WSJ subscription so I can't follow the link ACM provides to the full story, and I don't have time at the moment to poke around on the Web for alternate sources of information about this research project. I would like to learn more, and will try to pursue this when I have more time.
Source: FutureHIT
May 9,2013
15:25New biosensors have the potential to detect antiobiotic resistance in bacteria, according to new research from the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE).
"Antibiotic resistant bacteria is a serious problem," Vitaly Vodyanoy, M.D. said in an announcement. "It is very important [when treating a patient] to distinguish between normal and resistant bacteria; if you have a case of resistance you have to take special measures to cure it."
Vodyanoy used bacteriophages, simple viruses that can target and kill bacteria, mixed with specific antibiodies, which can be used to produce a color change in a sample that indicates antibiotic resistance. This technology can be used by clinicians treating patients and also be used to help disinfect hospital facilities.
This sounds promising to me. The story goes on to mention potential application of the biosensor technology to Clostridium difficile, the superbug that took my father's life earlier this year. The more I learn about "C. diff", the more I appreciate the challenges involved in battling superbugs.
There are good reasons why everyone should care. Check out the inhabitat "hamburger" link below (or click here) for one good example. The odds of you coming down with a superbug infection in your lifetime are increasing rapidly.
Source: FutureHIT
April 8,2013
2:49Hi everyone!
I have been invited to Chair a session at the IC-ININFO 2013 conference in Prague in September and am now looking for abstracts by people interested in attending.
I am particularly interested in papers around sociotechnology or knowledge management. At this stage an abstract is required of around 250 words to me in the first instance and if I accept it, then it will go through the online review system. After acceptance of their abstract the authors have to prepare their Conference paper of up to 8 pages.
The paper submission will initiate a further single blind peer review process and the final paper will be published in the Conference Proceedings Book. More over, each author can submit a full paper to one of the supporting journals.
Please get in touch if you have an idea for this conference.
Elayne Coakes (Dr)
Senior Lecturer, Information and Knowledge Management
Room M112
The University of Westminster
coakese at WESTMINSTER.AC.UK
My source: SOCIOTECH at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
I have been invited to Chair a session at the IC-ININFO 2013 conference in Prague in September and am now looking for abstracts by people interested in attending.
I am particularly interested in papers around sociotechnology or knowledge management. At this stage an abstract is required of around 250 words to me in the first instance and if I accept it, then it will go through the online review system. After acceptance of their abstract the authors have to prepare their Conference paper of up to 8 pages.
The paper submission will initiate a further single blind peer review process and the final paper will be published in the Conference Proceedings Book. More over, each author can submit a full paper to one of the supporting journals.
Please get in touch if you have an idea for this conference.
Elayne Coakes (Dr)
Senior Lecturer, Information and Knowledge Management
Room M112
The University of Westminster
coakese at WESTMINSTER.AC.UK
My source: SOCIOTECH at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Categories: News and Views , All
March 31,2013
19:17I am really looking forward to next week's the Difference That Makes a Difference an interdisciplinary workshop on Information: Space, Time, and Identity at the The Open University and the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK.
There's a session of instant interest to me as it refers to Peter Gärdenfors' work on conceptual spaces -
Naeve and Smith provide a further reference:
Ref: Ambjörn Naeve. 2011-01-31. A Modeling Primary on Methods and Techniques for Communicative Modeling and Disagreement Management. European Commission Seventh Framework Project (IST-257822).
There's a session of instant interest to me as it refers to Peter Gärdenfors' work on conceptual spaces -
Session 1: Information and Space
Spacification: How to design and construct spaces
that can enhance artistic experiences
Ambjörn Naeve (KTH, Sweden) and Carl Smith (London Metropolitan University, UK)
Spacification: How to design and construct spaces
that can enhance artistic experiences
Ambjörn Naeve (KTH, Sweden) and Carl Smith (London Metropolitan University, UK)
Naeve and Smith provide a further reference:
A (conceptual) model is a description of the most important concepts and their respective relationships within a certain domain of interest. Whatever domain of interest that you focus on, your model will consist of (conceptually simplified) parts that interact with each other in some way. This leads to three different types of models:As we will see, these modeling types can often be mixed into a single model, and then these different types should be thought of more as “aspects” or “perspectives” of the model.
- The static model describes WHAT the (most important) parts are about.
- The dynamic model describes HOW these parts interact with each other.
- The intentional model describes WHY they display this behavior.
Ref: Ambjörn Naeve. 2011-01-31. A Modeling Primary on Methods and Techniques for Communicative Modeling and Disagreement Management. European Commission Seventh Framework Project (IST-257822).
Categories: News and Views , All
March 16,2013
8:39On Thursday afternoon I introduced Hodges' model to six student nurses. In wrapping up the session I suggested the students look up 'health literacy' indicating how Hodges' model can incorporate reflections on the many literacies essential for life (and death) in the 21st century. For one student this small kernel of news was unfortunately too late, a piece of work having just been handed in.
Great to see the following item in this week's HSJ - Health literacy training on offer for 100,000:
The Telehealth supplement in the same issue of HSJ notes that small companies struggle when they are offered yet more pilot projects with 30 patients.
100,000 - well that should be a good shot in the arm.
Trueland, J. (2013) The six billion dollar question, Telehealth supplement. HSJ, 14 March, 8-9.
Additional link:
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/commissioning/kelsey-plans-action-on-health-technology-education/5055974.article
Great to see the following item in this week's HSJ - Health literacy training on offer for 100,000:
The NHS Commissioning Board will work with a charity to offer 100,000 people access to training in online health literacy over the next year, it has announced.The board’s national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey said on Thursday it had made the agreement with UK Online Centres, an organisation which specialises in tackling digital exclusion.
The work comes in the run up to the board’s deadline of 2015 for patients to have access to their GP health records. ...
Health literacy training on offer for 100,000, Health Service Journal. 14 March 2013, p.10.In terms of health literacy as a whole this is one aspect, but as the previous post point out we need to consider human factors. Innovation also involves physical and cognitive access, relationships, referral, the interplay and dependencies between existing literacies (poor functional literacy and yet high health literacy?), differentiating between literacies, motivations and to what extent can participants themselves be mobilised as a force for change beyond 100,000 ...?
The Telehealth supplement in the same issue of HSJ notes that small companies struggle when they are offered yet more pilot projects with 30 patients.
100,000 - well that should be a good shot in the arm.
Trueland, J. (2013) The six billion dollar question, Telehealth supplement. HSJ, 14 March, 8-9.
Additional link:
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/commissioning/kelsey-plans-action-on-health-technology-education/5055974.article
Categories: News and Views , All
October 14,2012
20:05
Twitter, like the Internet in general, has become a vast source of and resource for health care information. As with other tools on the Internet it also has the potential for misinformation to be distributed. In some cases this is done by accident by those with the best intentions. In other cases it is done on purpose such as when companies promote their products or services while using false accounts they created.
In order to help determine the credibility of tweets containing health-related content I suggest the using the following checklist (adapted from Rains & Karmikel, 2009):
- Author: Does the tweet contain a first and last name? Can this name be verified as being a real person by searching it on the Internet?
- Date: When was the tweet sent? If it is a re-tweet when was the original tweet sent?
- Reference: Does the tweet reference a source? Is this source reliable?
- Statistics: Does the tweet make claims of effectiveness of a product or service using statistics? Are the statistics used properly?
- Personal story or testimonials: Does the tweet contain claims from an individual who has used or conducted research on the product or service? Is this individual credible?
- Quotations: Does the tweet quote or cite another source of information (e.g. a link) that can be checked? Is this source credible?
Ultimately it is up to the individual to determine how to use health information they find on Twitter or other Internet sources. For patients anecdotal or experiential information shared by others with the same illness may be considered very credible. Others conducting research may find this a less valuable information source. Conversely a researcher may only be looking for tweets that contain reference to peer-reviewed journal articles whereas patients and their caregivers may have little or no interest in this type of resource.
Reference
Rains, S. A., & Karmike, C. D. (2009). Health information-seeking and perceptions of website credibility: Examining Web-use orientation, message characteristics, and structural features of websites. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(2), 544-553.
Source: Laura O'Grady; PhD
June 26,2012
14:35
The altmetric movement is intended to develop new measures of production and contribution in academia. The following article provides a primer for research scholars on what metrics they should consider collecting when participating in various forms of social media.
ThinkUp
If you participate on Twitter you should be keeping track of the number of tweets you send, how many times your tweets are replied to, re-tweeted by other users and how many @mentions (tweets that include your Twitter handle) you obtain. ThinkUp is an open source application that allows you to track these metrics as well as other social media tools such as Facebook and Google +. Please read my extensive review about this tool. This service is free.
Bit.ly
You should register with a domain shortening service such as bit.ly, which will provide you with an API key that you can enter into applications you use to share links. This will provide a means to keep track of your click-through statistics in one location. Bit.ly records how many times a link you created was clicked on, the referrer and location of the user. Consider registering your own domain name and using it to shorten your tweets as a means of branding. In addition, you can use your custom link on electronic copies of your CV or at your own web site. This will inform you when your links have been clicked on. You should also consider using bit.ly to create links used at your web site, providing you with feedback on which are used the most often. For example, all of the links in this article were created using my custom bit.ly domain. In addition, you can tweet a link to any research study you publish to publicize as well as keep track of how many clicks are obtained. Bit.ly is a free service.
TweetReach
Another tool to measure your tweets is TweetReach. This service allows you to track the reach of your tweets by Twitter handle or tweet. It provides output in formats that can be saved for use elsewhere (Excel, PDF or the option to print or save your output by link). To use these latter features you must sign up for an account but the service is free.
Buffer
Buffer is a tool that allows you to schedule your tweets in advance. You can also connect Buffer to your bit.ly account so links used can be included in your overall analytics. Although Buffer provides its own measures on click-through counts this can contradict what appears in bit.ly. This service is free but also has paid upgrade options available that provide more detailed analytics.
Web presence
Google Scholar Citation Profile
You can set up a profile with Google Scholar based on your publication record. The metrics provided by this service include a citation count, h-index and i10-index. When someone searches your name using Google Scholar your profile will appear at the top before any of the citations. This provides a quick way to separate your articles from someone else who has the same name as you.
Google Feedburner for RSS feeds
If you maintain your own web site and use RSS feeds to announce new postings you can also collect statistics on how many times your article is clicked on. Feedburner, recently acquired by Google provides one way to measure this. You enter your RSS feed ULR and a report is generate, which can be saved in CVS format.
Journal article download statistics
Many journals provide statistics on the number of downloads of articles. Keep track of those associated with your publication by visiting the site. For example, BioMed Central (BMC) maintains an access count of the last 30 days, one year and all time for each of your publications.
Quora
Other means of contributing to the knowledge base in your field include participating on web-based forums or web sites such as Quora. Quora provides threaded discussions on topics and allows participants to both generate and respond to the question. Other users vote on your responses and points are accrued. If you want another user to answer your question you must “spend” some of your points. Providing a link to your public profile on Quora on your CV will demonstrate another form of contribution to your field.
Paper.li
Paper.li is a free service that curates content and renders it in a web-based format. The focus of my Paper.li is the use of technology in Canadian Healthcare. I have also created a page that appears at my web site. Metrics on the number of times your paper has been shared via Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Linked are available. This service is free.
Twylah
Twylah is similar to paper.li in that it takes content and displays it in a newspaper format except it uses your Twitter feed. There is an option to create a personalized page. I use tweets.lauraogrady.ca. I also have a Twylah widget at my web site that shows my trending tweets in a condensed magazine layout. It appears in the side bar. This free service does not yet provide metrics but can help increase your tweet reach. If you create a custom link for your Twylah page you can keep track of how many people visit it.
Analytics for your web site
Log file analysis
If you maintain your own web site you can use a variety of tools to capture and analyze its use. One of the most popular applications is Google Analytics. If you are using a content management system such as WordPress there are many plug-ins that will add the code to the pages at your site and produce reports. WordPress also provides a built-in analytic available through its dashboard.
If you have access to the raw log files you could use a shareware log file program or the open source tool Piwik. These tools will provide summaries about what pages of your site are visited most frequently, what countries the visitors come from, how long visitors remain at your site and what search terms are used to reach your site.
Summary
All of this information should be included in the annual report you prepare for your department and your tenure application. This will increase awareness of altmetrics and improve our ability to have these efforts “count” as contributions in your field.
Source: Laura O'Grady; PhD
June 24,2012
12:52- The following provides a timeline of articles that appeared in newspapers and blogs from January 2011 to present. The articles demonstrate a progress from patient engagement in online communities to those that include reference to increasing provider involvement.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
13 - 15 May 2013, Dublin, Ireland.
At the Second Forum of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) in Geneva, Switzerland, Siemens Healthcare will debut the new RT Pro edition of the Somatom Definition AS Open 20/64 large bore computed tomography system. The RT Pro edition was specially developed for use in radiation therapy and permits more precision in therapy planning and cancer treatment - particularly under difficult conditions, such as obese patients and artifacts from metal implants and tumor motion.
A week ago, 
| Healthcare IT, also known by the acronym HIT, is all about using information technology solutions such as hardware, networking, and software to help improve healthcare, save lives, reduce costs, and improve profit margins for healthcare organizations. Healthcare IT has always been important but recently it has been receiving more attention because the government and consumers (patients) | are demanding better service from care providers and healthcare IT is a good way to improve service.The healthcare system, especially in the USA, has some critical problems such as nurse and physician shortages, spiraling costs, poor consumer (patient) service, and lower revenues which lead to mergers | or acquisitions. Healthcare IT is in even worse shape because outdated infrastructure, legacy architectures, and monolithic applications prevent positive change from occurring. Healthcare IT can, if used properly, help reduce costs, improve care provider productivity (which can then alleviate some of the shortages), and significantly improve customer service to patients. |
comments